Day by day diary

Day 4 - 1st July 2000 - Barranco Hut (3955m) to Karranga Valley (3950m)

Today is the extra day we have added to our itinerary for aclimatisation. Instead of traveling to Barafu we will split the trek to overnight at the Karanga Valley roughly half way. Afterwards we felt this extra day helped us to enjoy our summit day whereas most others around the summit seemed to be having a little less 'fun' !! The morning starts in the familiar way; tea in the tent and breakfast as soon as the rising sun took the chill off the frosty morning. Jon walks to the end of the spur we camped on and stands on a boulder to get the first rays of sun as quickly as possible. It is that cold, although with a stack of cold weather gear in our bags we could have dressed better. Sun rise over Kibo's summit heralds another glorious day with blue skies and hot sun. The sun very quickly warms everything up enough to encourage us to pack up our gear and set off for the day at around 0915.

The day's first and main obstacle is the imposing looking lava face of the Great Barranco Wall. The rough, craggy, sheer looking wall looms quickly after a short walk across the valley floor. We pass a huge boulder and start to climb past a forest of Giant Groundsel to the foot of the wall. Once on the wall the worst that is encountered is some easy scrambling. The steep climb gets the heart pounding early in the day. A stiff scramble for 30 minutes or so and the steepest section is behind us. A further 30 minutes on easier, but still steep, slopes and we finally reach the top of the wall at an altitude of 4180m, our high point for today.

The reward is probably our best and closest view of Kibo's glaciers. The morning sun shines across the rim of the crater reflecting off the icy slopes. The crystal clear air and bright sunshine makes the gleaming glaciers look close enough to touch and perfect in infinite detail. To the left, perched atop the sheer cliff of the western breach, the Diamond Glacier 'drips' over the cliff with giant, long icicles reaching down to the Balletto Glacier on the shelf below. To the right of these the Heim, Kerstien and Decken Glaciers buckle over their uneven rock beds. At the icefalls along the lower edges of the glaciers the cracks and fractures in the flowing ice stand out in contrast to its white surface. Where the sun is angled along the edge of the glaciers the light blue colour of the ice stands out. The whole scene brings to mind a gigantic, badly iced cake.

We eventually tear ourselves away from the view and head down slightly on our undulating course for the day. We cross two valleys traversing around towards Karanga Valley. The barren landscape is desert like with a few hardy plants sheltered in gaps under and between rocks. The sea of cloud stretches away to the horizon to our right with Mt Meru, as always, rising like an island in the distance. The Karanga Valley is a little deeper than those we have crossed during todays trek, but smaller than the Barranco Valley. We descend to a flat area towards the head of the valley above a cascading stream. Our camp is again set up for us when we arrive. As the trek was shorter today we arrive about midday after about 2hrs 40mins of walking, including 345m of ascent and 360m of descent. A welcome lunch of chips, eggbread fritter, tomato and baked beans follows shortly after we arrive.

Today is sunny and clear although the summit does cloud in for 5 hours in the middle of the day. We lounge around in the sun resting, reading and taking in the scenery. By the evening the top is again clear of cloud reflecting the changing colours of the evening sun. The valley is similar to Barranco in that it is relatively lush with many of the giant size mountain plants around us. We watch an eagle like bird continuously circle the valley getting intermittently mobbed by resident white collared ravens. We have one other group of two trekkers camping across the valley for company tonight. They enjoy the late evening sun long after our campsite has descended into the cold shadows cast by the valley wall.

Dinner is around 1800 (soup, rice, chicken and vegetable sauce) and we then take shelter from the cold in the tent as the sun goes down. The sea of clouds at the end of the valley seems to flow like a pink river across our view as the sun sets.

Our team looking after us is doing an excellent job. Ben our guide, although having bad taste in football teams (!), is very good indeed. We then have a cook/assistant guide who does an excellent job producing good food high on the mountain. He will be a second guide on our summit climb to accompany one of us if we have to turn back. The rest of the team is made up of our three porters, two of whom were called different names that both sounded like Amarnie. The subtlety is unfortunately lost on us as the names both sound identical !!

Karanga valley camp is at 3950m, a similar level to Barranco the night before. Tomorrow we head up to our highest campsite at 4630m. The altitude has not really affected us since yesterday following Lava Tower. We both feel ready for our summit attempt in some 36 hours time. Hopefully the extra aclimatisation day will help us get there.